Church of the City New York

This Sunday, Pastor Suzy continued our Fall sermon series, The Jesus Stuff, by diving into the importance of being dependent on the Holy Spirit and interdependent on the body of Christ.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued our Fall sermon series, The Jesus Stuff, by posing three questions we can ask before we walk into any situation that will help lead us to live as Jesus did, not just manage our sin. As we pursue The Jesus Stuff, we must have faith that God is moving so we can join Him, listen for His promptings so we can hear His whispers of where to go, and move in obedience towards where He leads no matter the cost.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon kicked off our Fall sermon series, The Jesus Stuff, where we will examine the kind of disciples Jesus calls us to be by taking a deeper look at how He lived His life. When we obey what Jesus calls us to do, resolving to not only learn from Him but act like Him, we move from participating in generic faith to living explicitly for Jesus. The Gospel is our invitation to burn with passion for the person of Jesus, and our call to the missionary adventure of reminding people of the beauty of the Jesus Stuff.

This Sunday, Pastor Ashley, continued our Summer sermon series, Defiant Joy: A Study Through Philippians, by focusing on Paul’s insight into the peace of God and the God of peace being available to us. Paul’s message is not meant to dismiss anxiety, but to reveal our access to peace in the midst of distress. Pastor Ashley taught that Paul first calls us to rejoice in the Lord and what He’s done, to be gentle with one another, and finally to not be anxious about anything. The order of these exhortations tell us that peace is not found in the absence of anxiety, but in the reorientation of every circumstance in the presence of Jesus.

This Sunday, guest Pastor, Darren Whitehead, continued our Summer sermon series, Defiant Joy: A Study Through Philippians, and focused in on Paul’s call to unity in the church. These verses reveal a conflict between two women in the church at Philippi, but Paul pleads with them to have the same mind in the Lord. This points us to the truth that the beauty of unity is rooted in God’s ability to transform our desires towards His. Community is not an absence of conflict, but the presence of God’s reconciling Spirit. However, there are cultural challenges that try to stand in the way unity. The church today faces political, racial, generational, and economic divides, but in the Lord there can be a unity in the body that crosses all of these lines. As believers, our loyalty to Jesus should be greater than our loyalty to any political party, we should identify first and foremost as a follower of Jesus, we should honor the generation before us and not look down on the generation after but build them up, and we should extend care within the church regardless of financial standing. These counter-cultural postures foster unity in the church and creates access to new authority. Pastor Darren referenced Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fell on followers of Jesus, and before the Spirit came, it is said that the believers were ‘all of one accord in one place.’ It was after unity was already happening that God poured out His Spirit, and the early church was born. Unity is so important to God that He commands a blessing where His people live in unity with one another. We each have the ability to disrupt unity, but we also have the ability to repair it, and this is God's call to us today.

This Sunday, Pastor Suzy continued our Summer sermon series, Defiant Joy: A Study Through Philippians, by teaching on Paul’s call for us to live into our heavenly citizenship. Believers have been given the benefits of being co-heirs with Christ because of His sacrifice on the cross, but we must live up to what we have attained through Him. This passage tells us that we are citizens of heaven, but that we are called to live up to that truth in this life.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued our Summer sermon series, Defiant Joy: A Study Through Philippians, by unpacking the beginning of Chapter 3. Here, Paul delivers insight into his own transformation of faith and highlights how we can follow his example of being thoroughly converted. Being thoroughly converted calls us to take all of our broken pieces and direct them towards the person of Jesus, trusting that in Him we will one day be made whole.

This Sunday, Pastor Suzy continued our Summer sermon series, Defiant Joy: A Study Through Philippians by teaching on the last section of Chapter 2. Here, Paul commends Timothy and Epaphroditus as men who care deeply about the church and the gospel. Paul makes a connection between the Philippians church, the proclamation of the gospel, and the interests of Christ.

This Sunday, Pastor Keithen continued our Summer sermon series, Defiant Joy: A Study Through Philippians by preaching on Paul’s encouragement in Philippians 2 to live as the people of God in the world. Paul wrote to the church of Philippi, whose people were the new Israel. Ultimately, as we live as true disciples of Jesus, joy becomes the mark of our spiritual authority in the world.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued our Summer sermon series, Defiant Joy: A Study Through Philippians by taking a practical look at what it means to love people like Jesus did. Loving others can seem increasingly difficult in today’s world, but this passage urges us to have the same, loving mindset as Christ in our relationships. Jesus loved us in an unreasonable way, and calls us to be like Him, finding joy in someone else’s prospering, even when it is at our own expense.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon continued our Summer sermon series, Defiant Joy: A Study Through Philippians by examining Paul’s call to the church to be a place of defiant unity in the face of the narcissism, contempt, and division in our current culture. Pastor Jon reminded us that while we can love God on our own, we cannot be the people of God on our own. Jesus calls us to value others above ourselves and sacrifice our preferences to become a compelling, alternative community of love and unity for our world.

This Sunday, Pastor Matthew Ro continued our Summer sermon series, Defiant Joy: A Study Through Philippians by looking at Paul’s mission statement, “For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain,” and how it enabled him to have defiant joy no matter what. Paul knew everything Jesus endured was for us, so we have the ability to endure anything for His sake, and our earthly realities can become second by the beauty and glory of Jesus breaking through.

This Sunday, Pastor Suzy continued our new sermon series, Defiant Joy: A Study Through Philippians by looking at Paul’s prioritization of the proclamation of the gospel. We find Paul rejoicing at the end of this text because the gospel message was still being advanced even while he was in prison. Paul’s letter should not only encourage us to reassess and reorder our own priorities around the glorification of Christ, but also strengthen our courage and resolve to share the gospel in every circumstance.

Guest Pastor Banning Liebscher gave a word about the importance of guarding our hearts against the lies of the enemy. Jesus came to connect us to truth and bring us freedom and abundant life, so the enemy’s main strategy against us is to disconnect us from truth through lies and lead us into a life of bondage. By keeping a vigilant watch over our hearts, meditating strategically on God’s Truth, praying consistently, and liberally casting our cares and burdens on the Lord, we can disrupt the enemy’s schemes to keep us from the life freedom Jesus has for us.

This Sunday, Pastor Suzy continued our new sermon series, Defiant Joy: A Study Through Philippians by looking at the Work of God. As we continue in Paul’s letter to the Philippians, we quickly see that, even though he is in prison, he is still able to rejoice. Paul’s source of defiant joy was in the work of the everlasting God, not in the work of any one man. As believers, we can share in this confidence and this joy, that God is always working in us, through us, and around us to bring forth the Good News of the Gospel.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon kicked off our Summer series, Defiant Joy: A Study Through Philippians. The apostle Paul is writing to the church he planted at Philippi, a community dear to his heart, and through the themes spiritual mentoring through his own life’s examples, defiant joy unshaken by circumstances, steadfast unity in the Spirit, and a reorientation around the worth of the person of Jesus, Paul reveals the secrets of the art of living a life of flourishing.

This Sunday guest Pastor Guy Wasko gave a teaching on the importance of Seizing Divine Moments. Through part of Jonathan’s story in 1 Samuel, we learn that sometimes God is asking us to just show up with nothing but an expectation that He will move.

This Sunday, Pastor Suzy continued our ‘Seeing Jesus’ series with the story of Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the risen Jesus outside of His tomb, and revealed how we can see Jesus through our despair. We meet Mary in the depths of her grief, distressed from the loss of Jesus, and find she is on the edge of giving up hope. Through her encounter with Jesus, we are reminded grief in this life is temporary, because Jesus has defeated death and made our hope secure in Him.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon taught on “Seeing Jesus Through Denying Faith” by taking a closer look at Judas’ betrayal and denial of Jesus. While Pastor Jon reminded us that while we cannot lose our salvation, we can deny our faith. It is confusing and painful to examine why faith fails, but it is increasingly necessary in our culture where people are rapidly turning away from faith. Judas’ story invites us to examine our motives for believing in Jesus.

This Sunday, Pastor Jon taught on "Seeing Jesus Through Doubt" with the story of Thomas’ reaction to the news of Jesus’ resurrection. After missing Jesus’ first appearance to His disciples after His resurrection, Thomas begins to wrestle through his doubts around who Jesus is and what He came to do. Thomas’ story is not meant to be a cautionary tale for believers today, but display the encouraging truth that facing down our doubts will deepen our faith.